


Chapter 3: Earthquakes (destroy foundations)

by Imagine_Sandbox



Series: they are (with each other) themselves [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Non-chronological story telling, SAKURA IS A BADASS, The love story between sakura and her smash, painful life lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 23:17:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagine_Sandbox/pseuds/Imagine_Sandbox
Summary: She grew up, and the world didn’t shift to accommodate her. She learned to accommodate the world.--Sakura is three when she first punches a boy.





	1. Earthquakes

Sakura honestly doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Naruto, naturally, doesn’t give anyone warning that he’s nearly home. Doesn’t give them a heads-up, so they can greet him at the gate.

The Konoha 12 had known he’d be back before Sasuke’s three years were up. Shikamaru, hearing about their dilemma about _when exactly_ he would arrive had named a month without seeming to consider the issue. The argument gets turned into a betting pool fairly easily. Naturally, Shikamaru takes home the winnings.

However, Sakura is there at the gates to welcome her orange teammate home. She thinks that’s better than any money she could have won.

\--

Sakura is three when she first punches a boy. It’s not carefully considered, not something she weighs for the potential gain over the risks. Hajime’s a bully in the neighbourhood: loudmouthed and violent towards anyone he can overpower. He tries to use the same intimidation tactics on her, and she levels a flat look back at him.

It escalates, because she’s three and he’s five, but she never really forgets. There’s a moment there, a moment when she thinks _you’re beneath me_ because she knows that she could beat him in a fight.

Her mother interrupts before she’s able to get her answer to the thought, picking her up from the dirt and holding her at arm’s length to keep the dust from being transferred on her clothes.

Her mother tells her that it is not the way that a lady must behave. And Sakura will most _certainly_ be a _lady._

__

Sakura, having watched the other children, thinks that being a lady sounds boring. She’d rather fight, and taunt, and get her clothes dirty. She’d much rather be a shinobi.

__

\--

__

Team Kakashi leaves Konoha the day after Naruto arrives, in order to aid Gaara. Naruto hasn’t even been in the village long enough to do anything more than see her, and form their new team.

__

Sakura isn’t sure she likes how the two incidents coincide, there’s an itch in her mind that whispers that this _can’t_ be a coincidence.

__

It feels, somehow, like they’re being taunted, luring the three remaining members of Team 7 away from help.

__

It’s been three years since anyone reliably knew where Naruto was, and the moment that he sets foot in Konoha, he’s called out again. Something is happening, and she doesn’t like the fact that she doesn’t have all the information.

__

But it’s exhilarating to be _doing_ something once again.

__

\--

__

They stop for the night, Kakashi having to order the blond to sleep. Naruto rolls out his bedding at the foot of the tree, sending a somewhat wistful look at the branches where she and Kakashi set up their own bedrolls.

__

Konoha teach their shinobi to tree walk at an early age, but earlier than that, they’re taught to hold a leaf to their forehead. The practice does more than anyone not-in-the-know would be able to understand. It teaches them to share their sense of chakra with any plant they touch, to introduce themselves. In turn, the trees would stand firmer, stay quieter and give them better coverage. Whatever they need, the trees respond.

__

Konoha’s trees would never offer safe footing to any shinobi other than those from their country.

__

She sleeps safe in the knowledge that the tree won’t let her fall.

__

She has the last watch, so she sees Kakashi wake Naruto from a safe distance, his chakra muted. She’d thought that Naruto had stopped… whatever that reaction was. She vividly remembers simply opening the door to Naruto’s room, and having her teammate do their level best to rip her to shreds. She remembers what Naruto had done to Tenten, and as she became the Primary Medic-nin to all of the Konoha 12, she knows the scars intimately.

__

It seems that not even the Legendary Jiraiya was able to heal the scars Sasuke left behind.

__

\--

__

Even at a young age, Sakura sees patterns. She notices that the adults, every adult, reacts the same way to children, any child. There are a few small variances, that include if the child is a shinobi or if the parent knows the child, but they react the same way. Every time. Especially to a child in pain, whether it is emotional or physical.

__

All adults react to each and every child.

__

Except one small blond boy.

__

It seems almost as though none of the adults see the boy, as though he is invisible, or simply doesn’t exist. Except that isn’t quite right. It seems a little more complicated. The civilian adults don’t interfere with any bullying that is directed towards the blond, but should the boy retaliate in any way, the adults react beyond what they would any other child.

__

The shinobi adults simply urge their children away from the boy. They are the ones that step in when the civilian children begin to go too far, but too far for this boy is far beyond too far for any other child.

__

He’s not invisible, Sakura thinks to herself. They do not wish to see him, to acknowledge him. They deliberately turn away. They do nothing to remove immediate dangers to the boy. There is no one that comforts him, no one dries his tears. She doesn’t understand, and it infuriates her.

__

They wish he was not visible, that he did not exist, but he is and he does.

__

Sakura wonders, and begins to plan. She hasn’t interacted with the boy, so she doesn’t know if her own parents will fit the pattern. She’s fairly sure that no one will care if she simply punches the boy, so she fits her actions to the pattern. She finds a decently strong branch that had fallen from a tree (likely from a friendly spar between shinobi, judging by the flatness of the end of the branch) and breaks it over the boy’s head. She’s in an open field in full view of her parents.

__

She watches her parents. Sees how they do not react, and _that doesn’t make sense._ She remembers what had happened when she had simply punched Hajime, and she’d been provoked then. She doesn’t understand, but her parents continue to look back at her serenely, happily watching their daughter play.

__

She’s watching them, so she doesn’t see the blond react. She’d honestly forgotten about him until pain explodes on her cheek, knocking her backwards.

__

She falls, shock stopping the pain for bare moments before the sting on her cheek gives way to tears. She can hear the adults yelling at the blond, but she doesn’t understand _why. ___

_____ _

_She’d_ done something wrong, and she can see the pain on the boy’s face. She doesn’t even know his _name_ she realises. There are tears covering her face and sobs wracking her chest as the adults try to avenge her pain, but more than hurt, she’s _confused._ The boy’s pain is clear if only one looks, easy to read in his eyes, in the twist of his hands, in the set of his shoulders.

_____ _

But he smiles at everyone, even as they punish him for a relatively mild reaction. There are ANBU that spirit the boy away as the crowd grows somewhat larger, and she _still doesn’t understand._

_____ _

That day, Sakura learns of pain. That everyone can see the physical scars that are left on skin, but that the emotional wounds will always run deeper. It takes less than a day for her cheek to stop stinging, an hour for the redness to fade. But she’s not sure she understands her parents, or any of the adults. She finds herself picking at their motives, their choices, watching them with wary eyes. It takes months for her to stop watching their eyes move, and even then, she still finds that she questions why they do things in a particular way.

_____ _

Through her surveillance, she sees how they begin to worry about her. They don’t like that she’s acting differently, they don’t like that she’s asking questions, they don’t like her watching them.

_____ _

So she hides her suspicions. She goes back to being the (mostly) happy child that they knew. At least, she pretends to. Her smiles slip off her face along with their gaze, her laughter rings out mainly for their ears.

_____ _

Sakura learns that the best way to deal with pain is to hide it. Emotional and physical. People only react to things that they can see. She begins to bury things, and bury them _deep._

_____ _

\--

_____ _

When they arrive in Suna, there is little that Team Kakashi can do to help. They do not have a direction to begin attempting to track Gaara and whole sections of the city are in ruins. Pandemonium does not run rampant, but there is an edge of desperation, only a hint away from true rampage.

_____ _

As bad as the situation in the village is, Kankuro’s is worse. He’s forever switching between extremes of hot and cold, his muscles seizing, and he has yet to regain consciousness. A cursory exam shows that his backup systems — what little there are — are ravaged worse than the initial systems. It’s as though the poison was engineered specifically to work through all the back-up systems before working on the initial ones.

_____ _

She can’t deal with it, wants to throw up, to walk away. This is too much, she isn’t able to do this.

_____ _

She buries it.

_____ _

She’s been trained for this, and it seems she’s their only hope. The last line of defence, and she will not fail.

_____ _

\--

_____ _

A few weeks later, Sakura’s street gets covered in paint. Her house is hit the hardest. It’s not much, but there’s large designs in horrible, clashing colours, and a squiggle that looks something like the words _butt-face_ if one squints and stands on their head.

_____ _

The adults all look at the paint with glares and comments about _the little demon._

_____ _

There’s a flash of orange that disappears around the corner of one of the houses, and Sakura’s fairly sure she knows what happened. She goes looking for the blond whenever she’s at the park, but she doesn’t see him for another few weeks.

_____ _

The bright orange of his jumper is, again, what catches her eye. He stalks around the playground, not-quite hidden in the trees, as though determining the chances of being hurt if he comes any closer. She keeps her eyes on her parents for a moment of inattention and slips into the greenery to talk to the blond.

_____ _

He’s wary as she approaches, because he’s not an _idiot._ She’s already shown that she’s willing to attack him unprovoked, and there’s no one what will take his side.

_____ _

“I’m sorry.” She whispers. She watches the blond for his reaction, and it mystifies her. There’s confusion before he seems to remember her and a touch of gratitude trickles in before it drowns in suspicion. The boy takes one more step back from her, looking as though he’s ready to bolt away.

_____ _

“For hitting you with the stick,” Sakura continues. “It, it was rude, and horrible, and I never should have done it. I — I just wanted to — to — Oh, but that doesn’t matter. It was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it.”

_____ _

There’s disbelief in the boy’s eyes, and he blinks, hard, as though he’s trying to make sure that this is real.

_____ _

“My name’s Sakura.” She offers, taking a step forward, and raising her hand to shake his. The boy looks at her like she’s insane. No one’s ever looked at her like that, and she bristles, about to demand that he offer his name in return, as manners dictate.

_____ _

“It didn’t even hurt, believe it!”

_____ _

The boy turns and disappears, hiding what looks a little like hope, confusion and gratification.

_____ _

She learns many things that day. She learns the power of words and gratitude. She doesn’t feel like the monster she was before. She honestly hadn’t considered what it would do to the boy when she had hit him, but she’d hurt him. He’d forgiven her for it, just because she’d said sorry.

_____ _

She doesn’t realise it for quite a few years, but she begins to learn how ruthless humanity is.

_____ _

\--

_____ _

She can see a reflection of Naruto in Granny Chiyo. It’s in the way that Chiyo cannot believe in another’s ideals, secure in the unwavering faith of her own truth. She can see an echo of Sasuke too, in the hate and vengeance that fuels Chiyo’s gaze. In the way that all three of them lash out at the world that rejected them in some way.

_____ _

But mostly, Sakura can see herself. Leashed emotions, poise and grace before anything else. Watching the world, wondering how they are so free in themselves. Envious of everyone else’s ability to express what they feel.

_____ _

\--

_____ _

It’s not that she doesn’t like Naruto. She likes him well enough, and under other circumstances, she thinks that they’d be good friends. But inside the ninja academy when he thinks he’s in love is not a good start.

_____ _

Despite the many times that he follows her, and tries to get her to pay attention to her, she ignores him. She knows he’s not really in love. She knows the attraction he feels is due only to her own lack of participation in the many “Naruto hunts”. It’s the lack of hate he feels and reacts to, but he doesn’t understand.

_____ _

But she still remembers the _thwack_ of the branch meeting skull, and the shock of pain that he’d inflicted in response. She knows that the village, upon seeing them together will only assume the worst.

_____ _

It occurs to her that Naruto had never had someone apologise. He doesn’t understand what a lack of hate is, a neutral party, and so he over-compensates his reaction to the emotion he feels. It is the only thing she can think of to explain him following her so faithfully as the weeks pass. He doesn’t understand and it pisses her off that she doesn’t know what other kinds of injustices have been brought on him throughout his life. She refuses to take advantage.

_____ _

It pisses her off even, though, more that the only one she can seem to take it out on is Naruto himself.

_____ _

She learns to hide her anger. To blunt it, to keep the bite of it at bay. After all, she can’t take on a village on her own.

_____ _

Not yet.

_____ _

\--

_____ _

Naruto can’t fight Itachi. Not successfully, and his words, his most effective weapon, have no effect on Itachi, much as she hates to admit it. Normally there’s a flicker, a moment of doubt, but Itachi shows none of the usual signs.

_____ _

Itachi’s main form of attack is his genjutsu, while Naruto’s inability to detect genjutsu is something she’s been aware of for nearly as long as they’ve been teammates.

_____ _

It makes her angry. Itachi keeps playing with them like they’re insignificant; flies in his face causing little more than annoyance, but also a prized pet to be indulged. He pays particular attention to Naruto, pointing out his faults, shoving senbon through the tiny cracks, altogether ignoring the obvious gaping wounds.

_____ _

There’s something wrong here, and it worries at the already confused patch that’s growing ever larger in her mind. This entire mission is worrying at her, but somehow _this_ seems off somehow. There’s something about _Itachi_ on his own that isn’t right, but she doesn’t have time to study it.

_____ _

Sakura shakes it off, and focuses on her anger. On the cold _fury_ that she’s built into her veins, and watches the contemptuous smile that keeps flicking on Itachi’s face, something safe enough that she can fixate on. 

______ _ _

This game Itachi keeps playing only feeds her need for wrath. He reminds her that Naruto could have come so much further, if only someone had bothered to look. Itachi makes her wonder about how much better Naruto would be if someone had taken the time to notice him before Team 7.

______ _ _

She doesn’t know if it would have made a difference. If Itachi would have still acted as though they were barely worth a fraction of his attention.

______ _ _

Still, Sakura buries it, letting the anger blaze high and compresses it into a single pilot light. There is nothing she can do here.

______ _ _

\-- 

______ _ _

She’s heard about Sasuke, of course. Everyone their age has heard of him.

______ _ _

It’s not until their fourth week of school that she really notices him, though. As attuned to avoiding Naruto as she’s become, Sakura quickly takes notice when someone begins to defend him as she longs to do.

______ _ _

Sasuke glares at them all, seemingly willing to take on the whole village for this one boy. Sakura can’t help but want that look defending her. She loves her parents, but they’re required to love her. She wants someone to _choose_ to look after her, to have the option to walk away, but elect to stay with her.

______ _ _

She tells Ino that she thinks she might like Sasuke, but she doesn’t mention why. She doesn’t say that she can defend herself, but someone to watch her back, someone with the same fury that keeps rising in her would be comforting. And even better than that, Sasuke seems so young and kind when the fight has stopped, and Sakura wants to know _how he does it._

______ _ _

For all that Ino is known for her temper, the anger never goes _deep._ Ino never becomes breathless when the rage finally drains from every corner of her thoughts. Ino never flounders without that pool of fury to draw from. Sakura does. It’s her teeth when she smiles, the vibration when she laughs, the air when she breathes.

______ _ _

There’s a rumour that follows Sakura shortly after her confession. At first she dismisses it, because she really doesn’t care if Ino likes Sasuke too. But…

______ _ _

But there’s something she’s seen, something she wants, but has never managed to gain for herself. She’s seen shinobi declare rivalry, seen the way they trust that there is always someone that will help, mixed in with the drive to become better than one another. She’s seen how they chase each other across Konoha, and the loser buys the dango. She’s come across them in the training fields, too tired to move, and still arguing with a smile on their face.

______ _ _

She’s seen _Rivals_ and she _wants._

______ _ _

But the patterns have never been wrong before, and she’s only ever seen it among _shinobi_ and it is something sneered about among the _kunoichi._ The only things the kunoichi ever compete for is _love._

______ _ _

So Sakura declares herself Ino’s rival for Sasuke’s affections.

______ _ _

She finds there’s perspective in all things. How one should act, the things one should like, the reasons behind their actions.

______ _ _

Sakura begins to act differently. The girls at the academy expect her to avoid Ino. She does, but sparingly. Until she walks out of the classroom during their lunch break, realising that she hasn’t talked to Ino in _weeks._

______ _ _

The girls only ever seem to want to talk about the recipient of their affection, basing every second word on them, and bending their world around them. So she begins to use Sasuke in a few sentences, here and there, until his name becomes so embedded in her head that she acts without thinking, and can’t tell what the original attraction was.

______ _ _

She just wanted a rival. She can’t help but feel a little alone in the aftermath.

______ _ _

\--

______ _ _

Tsunade sent Team Gai after them, and she can’t help the irritating part of her mind that _screams_ about Tsunade’s doubt in their strength. Team Gai’s wary behaviour towards Naruto just pushes the pain deeper.

______ _ _

She’s somewhat resentful of the rest of their self-proclaimed Konoha 12. Team 7 is the only one to have lost a member, and the other teams look at them with pity. Beyond that, Team Gai hadn’t known Sasuke. They’d only met during the chounin exams. They hadn’t shared a classroom with them, and although the ten of the Konoha 12 left in village had become close, Lee, Neji and Tenten didn’t feel the absence of the Uchiha like the others did.

______ _ _

But all of them forgot that Sasuke wasn’t the only one that left — he was just the only one without permission. Her team had been ripped apart at the seams and thrown into the abyss. Naruto had left the village, only sending infrequent letters passed along through his toad summons. Kakashi had seemed to forget that being a shinobi was supposed to be _second_ to being human.

______ _ _

Sasuke wasn’t the only one that had left, and none of the other teams understood just how isolated she had become, abandoned by those she was the closest to.

______ _ _

\--

______ _ _

She’d gotten ahead of herself. She’d thought, between the pre-test that had been set up on their way to the enrolment for the exams, as well as the first test, that the rest of the chounin exams would be easy. Those two tests had played to her strengths. The genjutsu had been a rather bad one — it didn’t quite fit in with the world, kind of like it was a sticker that she could peel from her eyes. More than that, the caster had used far too much chakra on it. It flooded her chakra coils, leaving her off balance. Her limited amount of chakra worked to her advantage on that case, as the caster would have needed to use the lightest of touches. The written exam hadn’t so much as given her pause. It wasn’t like the questions had been easy, but they’d given her enough time to work through them. They’d given her so much time, in fact, that for the twenty minutes leading up to the Ibiki telling them the final question she’d had nothing to do but watch and worry about Naruto.

______ _ _

But here, in the aptly named Forest of Death, here she is a burden. Her ability with taijutsu, kunai, and shuriken are passable, but only by academy standards. Her stamina is gone, and unlike her teammates, she can’t keep digging further for it, until she passes out between one step and the next.

______ _ _

The thing is, though, that she’s the only one left.

______ _ _

Sasuke passed out screaming from whatever that grass shinobi had done, and what she can sense of his chakra is rather frightening. In all honesty, she’s fairly sure that she would have knocked him out if his cries of pain had gone on much longer.

______ _ _

Naruto’s chakra is in almost the opposite condition. It’s disturbed, sure, but the corrosive _hate_ that had been burning through him during the fight has cut off. Again, from something that grass shinobi had done which had caused her teammate to pass out.

______ _ _

She shakes just getting the three of them out of the trees. Her knees knock and quake, her arms are screaming from the strain of carrying two people larger than her, but they’re in the open, and it would be a small miracle for her to fight off a well-trained academy student, let alone a team nearing chounin status.

______ _ _

From a quick look around, she spots a small cave, and manages to hide them all. It wasn’t a good hiding point, but it was close, and it was a small miracle that she’d managed to get them all this far.

______ _ _

She’s not cut out to be a shinobi, she realises. She doesn’t have Sasuke’s grace and raw ability. She doesn’t have Naruto’s planning and unpredictability.

______ _ _

So when she’s the only one between her teammates and three enemies, she’s not exactly surprised that she fails. The traps that she’d set are textbook perfect, which, she supposes, is where she went wrong. She’d tried to wake her teammates when she’d gone about creating the protections, but neither of them had so much as moved.

______ _ _

She’s bone tired, and hasn’t slept in over a day. Her eyes are dry and hurt to focus, while her head aches. The sound shinobi destroy her, holding her captive while she watches them creep up on Naruto and Sasuke. They want her to watch, to glory in her despair, as though it’s some form of entertainment, or a fine liquor; something to be savoured.

______ _ _

Well, fuck that.

______ _ _

It’s not like her hair is something she’s overly attached to. She’d forgotten that, for a while, the reason she’d first started to crow about Sasuke, why she chased any and every rumour about him. She still wants him, still wants that consideration directed toward _her._

______ _ _

But they’re already friends, teammates, and she honestly doesn’t think her hair is going to matter. Her mother will cry over it, but it’s hot anyway, so she doesn’t care. _Honestly,_ she thinks, _I should have done this years ago._

______ _ _

She’s free, but she still doesn’t have Sasuke’s pure ability or Naruto’s energy. But she doesn’t have to.

______ _ _

She has her mind. She can see how patterns form, and she sees how others react. So she creates a pattern, and waits for the perfect moment to break it.

______ _ _

\--

_____ _

The plan they arrive at is, apparently, _her._ They need to remove the seals around the place, but then they have the boulder that is acting as a door to contend with. Gai’s team is needed to break the seals, and it leaves her in charge of the heavy-lifting.

_____ _

She reaches for her chakra, the meagre supply that she has, and draws it towards her fingers, reinforcing her skin, muscle and bone.

_____ _

Then she reaches toward the cold _fury_ that simmers within her. The anger that she’s accumulated throughout her life, amassed on behalf of those she loves, and herself. It’s become as natural to her as breathing, collecting the two forces that drive her forwards and mixing them within her body to use as an outlet.

_____ _

She forces her anger through her body, and smiles at the destruction she brings.

_____ _

\--

_____ _

For all the patterns she can see, she’d never seen this coming.

_____ _

There’s lightning in Sasuke’s palm and hate in his eyes, and Naruto matches it with wind and pained confusion.

_____ _

She’s seen them fight before — it was a nearly hourly occurrence, and often Kakashi had sent them off between their missions to “blow off steam”. It would have been bizarre if they hadn’t fought.

_____ _

But it had always just been until Sasuke had Naruto pinned, or a kunai against his skin. Now there’s two new techniques that they’ve never used before and they’re both deadly.

_____ _

Sasuke had only just woken up, and they haven’t even gotten to a training ground. They’d just moved to the top of a hospital. She just wants them to stop and, although she knows it won’t do any good, she runs between them.

_____ _

She has never been so happy to see Kakashi.

_____ _

Sasuke leaves, that look of hate still in his eyes, and directed at all of Team 7. Naruto looks after him, bewildered, and wonders off.

_____ _

She tries to rearrange the pieces in her mind, for once trying to make the pattern change into something she wants to see, instead of what it really means.

_____ _

“Don’t worry,” Kakashi tells her. “Things will be back to normal in no time.” he smiles at her, and that is when she truly begins to worry. Because he’s never _lied_ to her before. He’s implied, or just not mentioned anything to her, but he’s _never_ lied.

_____ _

She’s only just realising that they really did become a team, and her team is shattering.

_____ _

Even after that, she hadn’t expected Sasuke to leave. She knows how he normally leaves the village and she’s never been so happy that she’d stalked him, trying to be his biggest fan-girl.

_____ _

She’s never been good at speeches — that’s Naruto’s department. She got Naruto’s attention, but she thinks that’s more due to being the first person to say sorry to him. So she tries to convince Sasuke only because no one else is there, and no one else is going to do it.

_____ _

She fails. She thinks it’s partially because she doesn’t really believe that he would leave. She couldn’t see him walking from Team 7, from this new family that they have built together. The family that _she_ runs to before her own parents. From the comradery that Kakashi offers without asking and without limit. From the pure _belief_ that Naruto offers, and the kindness and love that shines in his eyes at all of them.

_____ _

She doesn’t understand why he would deny himself the happiness she had begun to see shining in his eyes, in the corner of his smirk, in the silence after his quips. Even after the usual scraps he and Naruto had gotten into, the contentment had seemed to drip off him. He’s completely different to how he’d been in the academy, and she can’t fathom giving it up.

_____ _

So when Sasuke refuses to stay, she doesn’t think to simply scream, and instead she only threatens to.

_____ _

She hits the ground, unconscious.

_____ _

They’d been a team, for all that she had never seen it coming. She hadn’t had the time to recognise it until too late. Until they were all gone: Sasuke missing, Naruto on a mission and Kakashi absent in mind and spirit, if not body.

_____ _

She had never seen this as the outcome.

_____ _

\--

_____ _

She’d expected this.

_____ _

Naruto’s blinkered vision meant that, upon seeing Gaara’s lifeless body, his reaction was inevitable. Naruto chases his friend’s body and Kakashi follows, swearing and calling Jiraiya’s teaching methods into question.

_____ _

The moment that gleam had entered their eyes, she had seen it coming.

_____ _

They’ve forgotten her, to an extent, and they have different priorities.

_____ _

They leave her behind again.

_____ _

They leave her to deal with a member of the Akatski and only Granny Chiyo, a non-ally, as back up.

_____ _

Once, she would have begun to cry. Once, she would have followed after her team, screaming for them to wait. Once she would have been consumed by loneliness, by betrayal and the horror of humanity.

_____ _

Once, she would have done a great many things.

_____ _

She is not the girl she once was.

_____ _

She stands tall — proud and fierce — from all the teachings she has been forced to endure. She stands as any representative of Konoha should.

_____ _

She stands her ground, and she holds it. She refuses to allow Kakashi and Naruto to have to deal with an enemy in front of them and an enemy behind.

_____ _

She is a product of her many teachers, good and bad. She has many experiences that she draws from, and she has seen much of this before.

_____ _

No one had seen this as the woman she would grow to be. The lady she _should_ have become.

_____ _

She finds she doesn’t give a _damn_ what they think.

_____ _


	2. Chapter 3.5: Aftershocks (hindsight is 20/20.)

Later, they all see what had happened. Later it makes sense, in some twisted, horrible way.

Sakura had never thought about the deep bruises that Gaara sported around his eyes. She’d never even really made the connection between knowing that Naruto had a bijuu sealed inside him, and the knowledge that it had taken nearly all of his strength to beat Gaara to a pulp after their chounin exams. True, by the end of the mission, she knew Gaara used to be a Jinchuiki, but the connection was never there.

She’d also never thought about what Naruto was told about the times that he’d attacked his friends.

Naruto, though, had seen the connections, wrong as they were. Sakara never heard what was said between the boys. She didn’t hear the suggestions about how to stay awake, and the kind of damage that could be done if one slept.

She’d forgotten that beneath the recklessness and blunder, her blond teammate was smart. In his own way. To be honest, she’s rather proud of Naruto of making the connection, even though it was the wrong one.

She just wishes that the aftermath wasn’t so damaging.

\--

They say goodbye. Goodbye to their friends, to Suna, to their ally.

As they leave, Konoha’s demon grasps the hand of Suna’s former monster. Both weapons, designed for combat, striving for peace. The Kazekage and the boy who would love to be Hokage.

The leaves dance in the middle of a sandstorm, unafraid of being torn to shreds.


End file.
